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honour is dear to me, I should highly approve this advice, if I found that when put into execution, we had nothing to lose but our lives. Nevertheless, let us deliberate upon these things; place before yourselves, gentlemen, your country exacting at your hands the duty of good and loyal citizens, and conjuring you by the soil of your birth, by the fidelity which you owe to your legitimate prince, by the safety of your fathers, your children, and your friends, as well as of yourselves. Let me exhort you to fix your regard upon the whole kingdom, whose sole dependence is placed on the preservation of your city. You cannot, gentlemen, without for ever dishonouring your name and your memory, either deprive it of your succour by your own folly, abandon it by your temerity, or subject it to perpetual servitude by your want of courage. For, to what else do the English aspire, envious as they are of your liberty and your glory, but to incarcerate in their cities, and eternally enslave those amongst you, whom they have found to be the most valiant and illustrious? In all the wars they have waged against you, they never had any other aim or condition save that. Cast your eyes towards all the other cities of France, groaning under the yoke of hard servitude, and suffering every thing that the cruelty and the rage of tyrants are accustomed to exercise against towns that are oppressed. There they ravish, pillage, beat, wound, and murder with impunity, without any respect of age, sex, or of dignity. Daughters are torn from the arms of their mothers, and cruelly violated in their presence, and immolated at their feet like victims, subject to the rage of soldiers. Cities are daily sacked

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that freely surrender; by night and by day, from every quarter resound the cries and the groans of desolated families. Such being the case, consider, gentlemen, whether you prefer to protect your city with courage and with constancy; or, to betray and shamefully deliver it to a most avaricious and cruel enemy."

Page 38. The earl of Suffolk and the lords Talbot and Escalles (Scales) sent by a herald as a present to the Bastard of Orleans, a dish full of figs, raisins, and dates, &c.

"At length, after sturdy blows being dealt on either side, the French were repulsed into the city; the Bastard of Orleans having acted worthily in this combat. Upon this account the inhabitants had great confidence in him; for relying upon his valour and his prudence, they often made sallies, finding nothing hazardous or difficult under the order of this great captain. So that it was no easy matter to discern whether he was most loved and obeyed by the soldiers, or by the citizens. Upon the most important and perilous occasions there was no one more esteemed by the citizens as a leader than himself, nor did the soldiers ever fight with greater confidence and hardihood than when led to the field by the Bastard. He was neither deficient on the score of courage in the midst of danger, nor of prudence during the conflict. He was indefatigable of body, and his valour invincible in war. He was abstemious in eating and in drinking, never yielding to voluptuousness, but following only the strict calls of nature. Neither by day nor by night was any difference made by him in the

periods of watchfulness and of sleep, giving only that time to repose which he could spare from the necessity of acting. He was uniformly at the head of the foot or the horse, always foremost in entering the battle, and the last to retire. Even his enemies admired his transcendent virtues, openly avowing that he was endowed with all the requisites appertaining to a great captain. And although he was mortally hated by their chiefs, whom he had roughly handled in all the combats wherein he had been engaged, and desirous as they were to possess this city, they in consequence were jealous of his fame: nevertheless the earls of Suffolk, and the lords Talbot and Scales, one day sent him by an herald a basket full of figs, grapes, and dates, begging him to remit them from the city some skins wherewith to line their robes. This messenger, having been welcomed most humanely, was sent back to the camp with the skins required, together with other presents, being a very rare and signal example of the liberality of this captain."-Dubreton, pp. 117, &c.

And the current was so strong and so rapid that it was difficult to believe, &c.

The sources of the river Loire take their rise in Upper Vivarais in Languedoc, and at the base of Mount Gerbierle-joux, and after running through an extent of country the river becomes navigable at the small town of Saint Rambert, above Roanne; it then waters the Bourbonnois, which it separates from Burgundy, and after entering the province of Orleans, continues its current through Blaisois, Touraine, Anjou, and a portion of Brittany, and at length empties itself into the ocean, after a course

extending more than an hundred and fifty leagues, at twelve leagues below Nantes.

The overflowings of this river are recorded by the devastations they have occasioned at different periods; and in particular, the country situated between the Loire and the Loiret, appear to have been visited by the most extraordinary floods. There is still to be seen in the parish of Saint-Nicolas Saint Mesmin, a stone on the gable end of the church, behind the door, upon which appears this inscription:

L'an mil cinq cent soixante-sept,

Du mois de Mai le dix-sept,

En cette place et endroit,

Se trouvera Loire et Loiret.

These inundations are occasioned by the thawing of the snows of the mountains of Forez and Auvergnac ; from very remote periods every means has been adopted to prevent, or at least, render those overflowings less frequent, since we find that so early as the reign of Charlemagne, banks were constructed to retain the Loire within her boundaries, and the successors of that prince have uniformly kept those works in repair. Except in times of inundation and high tides, the Loire pursues a very tranquil course.

Page 39. Of which five was the lord de Grey, nephew of the defunct earl of Salisbury, &c.

The Editor has not been able to ascertain who was the personage designated in the above lines.

Page 40. And drove the French until very near the boulevard of Banier Gate, &c.

Banier Gate is at the northern extremity of Orleans, communicating with the square of the citadel. This portal, like the others, had two towers, which are no longer standing, having been demolished in 1754.

Wherefore the tocsin was sounded from the belfry, &c.

Before the tower was raised on which is now placed the large city clock, the tower of Saint Pierre Empont served as the belfry. From thence the couvre-feu (the curfew), public rejoicings, alarms, &c. were sounded, as we find by an order of the parliament of Paris, bearing date the tenth of April 1323.

From thence also, during the night, was rung the setting, continuance, and breaking up of the watches; the bell used upon those occasions being named La Trompille de la Guette, otherwise Chasse-ribault.

Page 41. A ball which killed a lord of England, for whom the English performed great mourning.

The name of the nobleman here alluded to, as being killed, does not appear in any of the chronicles.

Page 42. The following day, which was Wednesday, and no Frenchman being there found, was an hole nearly pierced through the wall of the almonry, &c.

When detailing this occurrence, Dubreton, at page 130, states: "The keeper of the almonry, fearful of being